Statebuilding and online gaming

What we might be able to learn about patterns of statebuilding from an online strategy game

Happy Friday!

When I’m not working, I sometimes like to do things that bear no relation or resemblance to work. One of these is playing computer games. Nothing fancy, I don’t try to be any good, and I usually prefer sports. But, of late, I’ve started playing an online strategy game called Total Battle. It falls into a recognisable genre: You have to develop a city and build armies to defeat other players and monsters.

One of the big work projects I’m working towards is a detailed exploration of Chechen subnational statebuilding and regime transition, looking at the role and transformation of networks. My goal is to eventually produce a book, but in the interim there will be a host of mini-projects.

What’s the link between these two things? Well, in a moment of inspiration, it struck me that the sociological characteristics of the game bear some resemblance to processes of statebuilding. So I hope you’ll bear with me for a little bit while I half-bake some ideas that may or may not be useful in the distant future!

With that in mind, here’s what you can expect this week:

• The rules and norms of an online game
• Voluntary constraints and enabling infrastructures
• The strengths and limits of comparison

The rules and norms of an online game

A good place to start is by explaining the game itself. You’re placed in charge of a city and you have to balance between developing the infrastructure, exploiting resources, researching technologies, and fighting battles. Your city exists within a kingdom and you interact with other cities (players) and monsters (the computer). You complete missions against both in order to progress. The genre has existed for decades — I remember playing Age of Empires as a kid, back when computers weighed 10kg and 16mb of processing power was top-drawer. Now, of course, there is much more emphasis on PvP gameplay (try that with dial-up internet, youngsters!).

So far, so simple. In reality, it’s complicated, and the complexity is what makes it engaging. When you start, the amount of stuff you have to learn is overwhelming. You fight the wrong battles. You waste your resources chasing the wrong things. You get yelled at by other people because you’ve violated some rule you didn’t even know existed. Rinse and repeat. But, over time, you learn what works and what doesn’t, what is acceptable and what isn’t. But, enough about life, let’s back to the game…

As with most games these days, interaction with other players is built in. They are not only there to be attacked: You’re expected to build alliances and work collectively — to achieve goals and protect yourself. You chat with them and form affective relationships. And it is from the interactive components that the potential for insights into statebuilding and network construction emerge.

Voluntary constraints and enabling infrastructures

From a sociological perspective, when you step back and think about it, some aspects of the game are truly fascinating.

The game has its own infrastructure. It is coded to enable you to do some things and prevent you from doing others. Battles are, for example, largely a matter of maths (who knew mental arithmetic was actually a useful skill?!). You can’t build something if you don’t have the requisite resources. Players have different roles, based on their superiority, with an elected king — a dubious mixture of political systems, that one — governing the whole kingdom.

But there’s also a whole framework that is created by the players themselves. For example, there are detailed Rules of Engagement — accepted practices and penalties — governing player behaviour and courts that adjudicate violations and disputes. Repeated violators are declared outlaws and are subjected to the wrath of the mob. Leaders create in-game tournaments and instruct people to ignore some of those created by the developers.

The game’s infrastructure encourages and enables some of these behaviours. It shapes the range of actions available to people. Over time, some player behaviours become part of the infrastructure, as the developers encode the best ideas. But many practices aren’t mandated by coding and there’s really nothing to force people to abide by the rules. Players choose to do so because it makes the game more enjoyable and affords more opportunities for success.

The strengths and limits of comparison

If you’re still with me, thank you! But what I want to suggest is that these processes of socialisation and norm creation bear at least a passing resemblance to the processes of statebuilding.

Think, for example, of times of great upheaval, such as revolutions and state collapse. Many players have no idea what they are doing. Some transplant old rules and relationships from a different game into the new environment. Others emerge who have never played the game before. But, over time, everyone works things out, their behaviours become codified and institutionalised, etc.

Other aspects are relevant too. Actors may have to operate within a framework established by others. In the game, this is the developers, but for subnational statebuilding in a place like Chechnya, it could be the Russian state. Resource disparities matter too: Some people spend huge sums to progress and success is not determined by skill alone (if you’ve never seen how much is spent in online games, you’re in for a shock!).

The relationship building that I have mentioned is particularly important. You can see in the game the way that relationships evolve: Clans break apart and reform; they consolidate; they are defeated or coerced; they accumulate enough power to be able to impose norms on others. On a basic level, this is Politics 101.

But then something can happen that disrupts the whole established order, throwing rules and norms into disarray. In the game, this is called ‘kingdom opening,’ where players from other kingdoms can move in and will have no regard for the status quo. In politics, this could be revolution, war, or some other forced intervention.

The power of analysing the digital space comes from the way that it renders many things transparent. Events happen within a confined space and much of what happens is — in theory if not in practice — visible to all. Of course, the parallels can be overdone: It is, in the end, just a game. People can quit any time they like. Losses and defeats cause no material damage and the reset button is always available. But the limits of the parallels don’t mean there is nothing we can learn from them. Not all inspiration needs to come from the ‘high’ arts and learned scholarship!

Will I do anything with these ideas — or is this just proof that I can overanalyse anything? Who knows! But it’s fun to see connections!